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<p class="p1">Software Engineering III</p>
<p class="p1">Team Retribution: Web Design Report</p>
<p class="p2"><br></p>
<p class="p3">Michael Solomon</p>
<p class="p3">04788885</p>
<p class="p4"><br></p>
<p class="p5">As part of our 3rd year Software Engineering Project, I was responsible for designing a functional website which could provide interaction both with our game, and with the users that visit the website.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
<p class="p6"><br></p>
<p class="p5">In the early stages of the course, I had set out initial design layouts to use for the website, as well as features and contents to add to the site, and I feel I was able to follow continue with my initial designs.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
<p class="p6"><br></p>
<p class="p5">The web design part of the project is essentially made up of two sections - the collaborative environment provided by Google Code (http://code.google.com/p/retribution-rpg), and the website itself that would provide the main interface with the end user.</p>
<p class="p5">The Google Code collaborative environment provided us with a source code repository that would integrate with Eclipse, as well as a team wiki. I setup and updated the wiki with a working navigation menu to access various pages of the environment, including all documentation as well as the downloads sections. As part of the team wiki was a page that the team was able to use to document updates; what both the team and individual members were working on and achieved each week.</p>
<p class="p6"><br></p>
<p class="p5">I also used the Google Code environment to store screenshots to document game updates and progression, as well as various working revisions of the game in zip archives. Also stored was a revision of the entire website I developed previously.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
<p class="p6"><br></p>
<p class="p5">The team's personal website was designed and created using Apple's iWeb (although not with any provided templates), and was edited using Adobe Dreamweaver 8 to extend the website's functionality, as iWeb was unable to do this. I developed and incorporated a PHP function in the "Contact" page (http://csserver.ucd.ie/~s04bf1d5/retribution/Contact.html) to allow the visitor to provide any feedback or queries they may have. This takes in the visitor's email address, and forwards on an email to the pre-defined email address.</p>
<p class="p6"><br></p>
<p class="p5">There is also an SQL database devoted to the website to keep track of high scores provided by the game. I developed a Java class that can be called within the game to send an HTTP GET request to the website, working with a PHP file, to insert a (name, score) pair into the table, which is stored in the SQL database (http://csserver.ucd.ie/~s04bf1d5/retribution/insert.php).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
<p class="p6"><br></p>
<p class="p5">Incorporated into the Download page (http://csserver.ucd.ie/~s04bf1d5/retribution/Download.html) is an Ajax application that returns the table of high scores from the SQL database, and allows the visitor to view either the Top 5 or Top 10 highest scores in the table, or none, where it simply reverts to it's initial display. This is done through Javascript and an XMLHttpRequst function, calling on a PHP function to return the desired scores, without the need of the user reloading the page. The Javascript is able to provide compatibility with the most commonly used browsers - Firefox/Safari/Opera, as well as Internet Explorer 6+ and older versions of the IE package - so that function will work with the majority of user configurations.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
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